Goodnight, Nobody
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: Quinn reminisces about her cheerleading days from a psychiatric hospital. Warnings: mental illness, drug use, murder


Quinn Fabray was a cheerleader.

It's a stereotype, and she wore it – she wore the perfect, chaste little girl guise in front of her parents, the sexy, hard-to-get guise in front of her boyfriend, and the athletic, driven, confident guise in front of her teammates. She was a cheerleader, and that meant a lot of things.

It's not true, what they say about cheerleaders being the most popular girls in school. She wasn't popular until she hit her junior year and made captain. But she worked hard for it, probably harder than she worked in her entire life.

It's funny how these things can slip away so quickly. It's funny how now, instead of pom poms in her hands, they're wrapped in mittens to keep her from hurting herself.

She always topped the pyramid; it's what her job was. She was light on her feet; she was perfectly balanced. Starving herself for months during cheerleading practice became like a religion. Counting calories in the Weight Watchers book was her Bible.

Nationals, 2009. All she remembers is the scent of vomit and fear. The floor of the gym was teeming with girls and boys of different team colours, practicing, shouting, sizing each other up and blowing up in the spirit of competition, and Quinn had to lead her team to victory.

Sue Sylvester is a horrible bitch, but she at least knew the meaning of competition. They were a well-oiled machine, cheering, moving in formation.

Quinn lies in her restraints and moves her legs in the steps she still remembers, even years later. She giggles at a mis-step – guess her memory's not as sharp as it used to be, but it never has been since the new medication.

But the point was, cheering was perfection. Their cheer never inspired the football team, but it inspired the judges. They won by a wide margin, the judges frowning and nodding at Quinn as she screamed the cheers louder than the crowd.

In the bus, Ms. Sylvester sat beside her. "You know, Q, you could really do something with this. Professional cheering for the Buckeyes or something. You have the dedication, and I don't say that just to anyone. Mostly, I just try not to spend too much time with people like you . . . your insecurity freaks me out."

Quinn had smiled demurely, ignoring the coach's jibe, and thought. If Finn agreed to try to get a football scholarship. She couldn't do it without him anyway. If she made straight As. It was an attainable dream, and better than the nothing that stretched out before her, anyway.

Then she got pregnant.

Faith demanded she keep the baby instead of getting an abortion, but she chose adoption in the end. And she still could have reached her dreams, if she hadn't lost her mind completely.

Instead of cheers, her mind was filled with lullabies and revenge. She plotted on hundreds of notebooks. What it would cost to keep Beth. What furniture she needed. How she'd convince her mother. Should she move out with Puck? Should she try to get Finn back one more time? Who was a better father figure?

Then there was how to achieve Beth. Show Shelby as an unfit mother? But how? How to get access to the baby . . . how to make Beth love her. Attachment problems and what to do to treat them. How to get Beth to realize that the person she needed to be with was Quinn.

It escalated. Breaking into Shelby's office at school, lacing her tea with an almost imperceptible amount of a potent narcotic that would build up in the blood, making sure that Shelby would be fired from her job. The pills were easy to get, hell, every rich kid had a parent on oxycontin. Strike one. The bitch was gone in six months without a good enough explanation to explain the high levels of oxycontin in her system. Seems chronic pain is just too flimsy a reason for school admins.

Next, become Beth's babysitter. Quinn had quit caring about school by that point, so she had tons of extra time. Shelby was going crazy trying to find a new job, and her initial balkiness at letting Quinn back into Beth's life disappeared in desperation when she realized Quinn was the only one available during school hours. After all, Quinn had cleaned up her act now. She was once again the perfect little Christian girl in her sweaters and skirts, and she had spare periods in the afternoon.

The only problem is, Beth hated her. Quinn struggled to get the baby to stop crying even when Shelby was gone for hours. The neighbours banged on the walls of Shelby's condo, yelling muffled obscenities and threats. The only thing that worked was to take Beth for long walks. As long as the stroller was moving, the baby was quiet.

They'd walk around and around the track, Quinn running like she used to during cheerleading training. "Beth, five more times, that's it, five more times means I'm light enough for the top of the pyramid again," she puffed, even though it was her last year of high school and she'd never do cheerleading again, especially since she was signed up for the real estate course after she graduated and wasn't going to college.

She'd felt a pang of remorse for it then. Remembered the red and white uniforms, the feeling of the curled ponytail against the back of her neck.

It passed.

After a few months, Beth stopped crying when Quinn came in the room. She even let Quinn hold her while Shelby was right there. Time for the next step.

She'd scored some more drugs, and she wasn't just lacing Shelby's food with them, she was also hiding them in Shelby's home. She knew the woman had to submit to regular visits by CPS now that she'd been found to be a drug addict, and sure enough, the woman was showing signs. Shaky hands, dark circles. Mood changes. Withdrawal.

Quinn continued to watch the cheerleading team. Sometimes she'd let Beth out of her stroller to dance beside the track as they practiced, and she smiled to watch the toddler clap her hands when the team captain did a perfect flip.

Shelby began to fail. Quinn started getting odd phone calls in the middle of the night, and she grinned. "Did you need me to take the baby?" she'd ask, her voice sickly sweet, and Shelby would agree, just so that she could score more oxycontin. Quinn didn't need to do anything at all, now. Shelby had her own dealers.

Things were moving along nicely, until they ground to an abrupt halt.

Shelby overdosed sometime in the early morning late in September. Beth was almost two and a half, and Quinn was staying overnight in the condo because Shelby had been too wrecked to do anything when she came home the night before. CPS was already suspicious – so far, there had been no official visits due to neglect, but the neighbour had seen the CPS social worker and had let her know that the baby appeared to be dirty and underfed most of the time, and that she cried constantly. Quinn, who had been outside smoking behind a bush while the neighbour spoke to the social worker in the doorway, expected them any day now to take away Beth – and she was trying to get Shelby to name her as next of kin.

Things got hairy, though, because Shelby ended up dying that morning, and Quinn had been so distraught over having her actually die that she hadn't thought to remove the packet of pills from the bathroom. A packet of pills with her fingerprints all over it.

Medical records were brought out. The administration from William McKinley was interviewed. And Quinn herself was arrested.

Things happened quickly after that. The death was ruled manslaughter, but Quinn was charged with aggravated assault causing manslaughter. That's when she completely lost it, and confessed everything.

Jail was not an option due to her questionable mental state. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital instead, though her charges still stood. The official charge was insanity, though Quinn never really found out their reasoning. Her mother's lawyer was no good, anyway.

Beth was given to a foster home, and from then . . . Quinn has never seen her. She still dreams about her, though.

Tied to the bed, she's restrained most of the time because she tries to hurt herself. The medicine causes hallucinations. She often sees the stadiums, the teams she performed for, the smiling face of Finn, Puck, and the costumes of the Glee club. Lots of times she sees Beth at different ages, and then she screams so hard she can't think.

Quinn rolls over in her bed and stares at the wall. She isn't hungry, though she hears the nurse at the door, here to take her down for dinner. The nurse loosens her restraints, changes her nightgown for white pajamas, and hisses in disgust because Quinn's wet herself again. Well, why even care anymore? Why even care enough to look after her own needs?

But she does.

"I was a cheerleader," she suddenly says, turning to stare the nurse in the eyes, her voice rusty from disuse.

"Oh?" The nurse isn't interested – she's trying to wipe Quinn down. "Move over, honey."

"I was a cheerleader!" Quinn screams it – because it was true, dammit. It was true.

The nurse finally stops what she's doing and turns her attention to Quinn. "You were?"

"Yes. I was." Quinn moves her foot in the patterns of the cheer steps on the floor.

"But now I'm nobody."

She jumps off the bed and heads toward the door. Who even cares about cheerleading anymore? Stupid, archaic sport.

But she does.


End file.
